Ad Folks Smoking Over Idea Of Ban

December 13, 1985|By Philip H. Dougherty, The New York Times

NEW YORK — The reaction in adland to the demand this week by the American Medical Association for the end of all promotion for tobacco products has been an almost universal condemnation based on First Amendment rights. The comments were not unlike those voiced when the congressionally dictated broadcast advertising ban against cigarettes went into effect in 1971.

``Deplorable,`` said DeWitt Helm, president of the Association of National Advertisers. ``I am very surprised that an organization as sophisticated as this one, with the resources it has, apparently overlooked the legal and constitutional issue.``

Most executives came down on the side of Allen G. Rosenshine, president of BBDO International, who said, ``If it is legal to sell, it should be legal to advertise.``

His attitude was not universal, however. Richard J. Lord, chairman of Lord, Geller, Fedrico, Einstein, said, ``It`s about time.`` And pausing a bit, added: ``How can people sell bad things? And they are bad.``

In 1969, cigarette advertising spending was measured at $280 million, which included about $200 million in broadcasting. The smart set of adland was certain the tobacco industry could never find a way to spend that money without broadcast.

Last year, according to Leading National Advertisers, an independent media measuring company, there was $695 million worth of tobacco product advertising -not counting daily newspapers.

Yet despite all that investment, the advertising industry stoutly insists that advertising does not get people smoking.

Unlike most products, cigarettes engender considerable brand loyalty. Switchers are a minority, and this group is the supposed target of all the advertising. The advertising is intended to reinforce a preference in the brand`s on-the-fence smokers, and convert those who smoke other brands.

What makes this a desirable and economic practice is the great size of the market. According to analyst John C. Maxwell, wholesale cigarette sales last year were $20 billion. So a brand with only a 1 percent market share is considered a winner.

People who remember the period from the 1920s through World War II recall an era of largely unfiltered cigarettes and very few brands. Television contributed to a flood of new cigarette brands. The broadcast ban had many people forcasting a major slowdown of new tobacco products.

Martin Friedman, editor of the Dancer Fitzgerald Sample New Product News, followed events then. His monitoring showed 25 new cigarette products in 1969, 24 in 1970, 25 in 1971, 17 in 1972, 11 in 1973, and then a leap to 34 in 1975. It did not take the cigarette people long to learn about alternative media.

With no media, Friedman believes, there can be no new products.

And new products can be a good thing, since, in the cigarette category, new products mean increasingly lower tar.

In its house organ in May 1979, BBDO took a look at cigarette marketing around the world and noted that while bans on cigarette advertising did nothing to reduce the number of smokers, the presence of advertising forced new products.

In Poland, where there is a ban on all cigarette advertising, smoking is not only up, but the brands are all full-strength. In Italy, with all advertising banned for many years, even then, smoking had increased 25 percent in a decade.